shared eternity
by hellishtrollop
Summary: It's a good thing that Bette is never without her protection. (It's a good thing that Dot is never without Bette.)


Elsa Mars quickly becomes used to the fact that the newest arrivals are trouble. Granted, they were trouble that were going to make money _quick_ — quicker than any other act ever had, but the bottom line was that they are _trouble_. The first day is difficult enough: Ethel had reported, more than once, that Dot refused to allow her sister to eat, and when offered the same food, had slapped it away so violently that it had spilled all over Ethel's lap and the bed. The second day had been better, if _better_ meant the twins cooped up in their tent through the morning, afternoon, and evening.

It's the third day, now. And they, to Elsa's growing dread, are _screaming_.

By the time she makes her way to the sisters in their tent, she still does not understand what is the cause for such turmoil. Dot is screaming at her sister, ripping strands of silk — something that may have been a garment at one point or another — from Bette's hands; the other is crying, and Elsa has the awful feeling that, if Bette _could_ cower away from her sister, she would have done so gladly. But she could not, and so she's left to weeping and flinching and murmuring weak calls of _you're so mean, all the time!_ "Whore," Dot shrieks, voice trembling with anger, and she throws down the pretty silk and lace. Perhaps it's a dress.

Elsa doesn't linger on it: she makes her way across the room. "_Meine Mädchen_," she murmurs, keeping her voice soft. After all, screaming and scolding never seems to work on Dot. "What is wrong?"

They sit, silent, on the edge of their bed, not looking at Elsa. Bette speaks first, voice quivering, cheeks wet with tears. "I upset her. I didn't _mean_ to."

Elsa lifts a hand to stroke Bette's hair, and the woman gladly leans into the caressing touch. She always does, after all: Elsa learns within the first few days that Bette is far more susceptible to comforting, affectionate touches than Dot, who is more than likely to slap your hand away rather than accept the attempt at comfort. "Of course you didn't, _liebling_."

Dot glares up at her, eyes burning, lips set in a seething line. "You're disgusting," she hisses, but it isn't to Elsa, it is to her sister. Naturally. Still, some of the anger leaks from her voice, leaving nothing but a chill in its wake. Bette shakes her head, but says nothing, and Elsa sits at the foot of the bed with them, stroking Bette's hair with one hand;

"Tell me what happened."

Dot doesn't say a word, so it's Bette who volunteers the first explanation. "I said. . .I said—I said you were nice. That I liked you. And I believe you. About wanting to help us—"

"No one will ever want to help us!" screams Dot, but her voice is hoarse and tears glitter in her eyes. "Look at us! Do you think anyone will ever _really_ want to stay with us or keep us around? You're a naive good-for-nothing—"

"Enough."

They both falls silent, surprised at the sharpness in Elsa's voice.

Bette begins sobbing anew.

"No," soothes Elsa, feeling a headache begin to creep up on her, rather like the waking of dawn. Not for the first time since she'd met the twins. "No, _liebste_, not you." With a gloved thumb, she wipes Bette's tears away; she leans forward, in the next moment, and presses a careful kiss to the crown of her head. "You simply need to learn how to get together. Both of you."

"We got along fine before," mumbles Bette submissively.

"That was before we got hauled off to a circus for _freaks_ to play and perform like trained animals," spits Dot seethingly, but even Elsa can tell that there is no fire left in her.

"This is the best home you will have."

"Yes," says Dot blankly, and they lay on the bed. From one angle, they almost look as _one_: not two women as a part of the same body, but then Elsa moves her head just slightly, and the illusion is gone. _Voilà: a magic trick. _"The bearded woman said the same thing, and we didn't believe her, either."

"I did," whispers Bette, and there was a tense silence.

"Shut up. Shut _up_," replies Dot, and now she is the one crying.

Elsa sits by them on the bed, feeling something swirling deep inside of herself: something like sadness.

Something like regret.

—

"That's pretty," murmurs Bette, a wide smile spreading across her face: still, Elsa knows that she thinks most things are pretty. Elsa is gratified to know that she is so easy to deal with. But then again, it is a package. Bette comes with Dot, naturally, and Dot comes with Bette, naturally. Dot was _not_ so easy to deal with; but she does not complain, to Elsa's great surprise. She simply glares and says not a word as the dress is slipped over them, and Elsa buttons up the back with deft fingers.

"We've never worn pretty things like this."

Elsa holds up a crystal hair pin; it glitters in the light, and even Dot looks momentarily distracted with the way it glints beautifully where the light hits it — before she returns to her glaring. Bette, however, makes it clear that she's quite taken with the pin, reaching out to touch it hesitantly. Like a wounded animal, Elsa thinks; as though Elsa would pull the pin away from her suddenly, laughing and sneering. Elsa does not doubt that had happened before.

With a smile, she slides the blue headband from Bette's hair and replaces it with the pin. She reaches for the other pin and places it in the opposite twin's hair, all gentle-warm touch. To her surprise, Dot allows it, staring at her strangely. "I don't want it," the young woman says, sneeringly; but when Elsa reaches for it, she doubles back, a hand lifting protectively to cover the pin. "Well — it's _mine_ now, isn't it?"

Bette giggles.

"Beautiful," says Elsa, smiling.

"Do you mean that?" questions Bette shyly, and Elsa wastes no time in nodding.

She half-expects Dot to say something rude, as she most often did; but to her surprise, there was nothing, just a distrustful glance. Bette twists her head to smile at her sister, unaffected by the way Dot glares back at her. "She thinks we're beautiful."

"Yes," says Dot blandly, looking at Elsa, and the woman knows with an ease that should not be natural that Dot does not believe her in the slightest, not like Bette does. Still, Elsa means it, like she's meant nothing else before: they _are_ beautiful, in their own way. The fact that they are conjoined twins (odd: the fact that no one focuses on the fact that they have two hearts and two brains, two minds and voices and souls and personalities: but just on the fact that they have two _heads_) does not take away from that, not in the slightest. "I heard."

—

If there was one thing Dot had learned was that her sister is the most naive, innocent little thing out there: as long as you aren't yelling at her, she likes you. And she even likes Dot, who is the person who yells at her the most. Perhaps it comes naturally with the fact that they are conjoined twins, but Dot thinks that it is more than a little unnatural, knowing that Bette never blames her for anything and always believes that it is her own fault for making Dot yell. Even if it's over something ridiculous.

It is always _I'm sorry_, not _you're to blame too_, and that is the most irritating thing of all.

The rudest thing Bette has ever said to Dot is _you're so mean_. Dot can think of many better things for Bette to call her, mostly phrases with curse words laced in, and yet Bette always does the same things in the end: apologize and smile and say, "I love you, Dot," and she is such an _idiot_ that it hurts Dot, sometimes, to know that her sister is so easily taken advantage of. It's a good thing that Bette is never without her protection.

(it's a good thing that Dot is never without Bette)

She hates Bette, sometimes. But whenever someone mentions _separation_, she feels a deep and uninterrupted sort of panic run through her, something like _nonononopleasenononoshesmysister_—and it is because she loves Bette, most of the time. How can she possibly not? Her life would be utterly miserable if she didn't love her sister. After all, they are one body. Two hearts, two brains, maybe; but they are one body, they are together, they have always been together. And if Dot truly hates her sister, she would have killed them long ago just to be done with it.

(she nearly did)

She hates Bette, and she loves Bette. But, dear _god_, was her sister difficult to deal with on a bad day.

Or on a good day.

_Any_ day, really.

"No. I like the pink one."

Dot rips the silk monstrosity from her sister's hands and throws it down. "I've already decided on the white one," she hisses. "It doesn't matter," she adds rudely as she slaps Bette's hand away from where it was creeping back to the pink dress. A light, pretty, innocent sort of pink. "We're a part of this band of freaks now. Do you really think it'll matter what we dress like? All anyone will care about is the fact that we have two heads."

Bette is silent for a moment, cowed. "Okay," she finally mumbles, voice soft and quiet. Dot can feel the pulsing anger inside of her fading away slowly as the tension between them eases out, and she sneers.

"The pink one's for tomorrow," she says decisively, because sometimes she simply _can't_ deal with the way Bette looks like a kicked dog when she's upset. It works. It always works: Bette's face lights up, a timid smile coming to life on the curves of her mouth.

Elsa enters the tent before the possibility of arguing over shoes arose. She looks at them, smiling — Dot doesn't like it. No one smiles for no reason; especially not at _them_. "_Du bist wunderschön_," murmurs the woman as she nears them, taking their hands, "Beautiful."

Dot wants to say something scathing. She would have liked to slap Elsa's hands away from them and watch as her face dropped in the same way it had on that first day that they'd met, but for some reason, her voice gets caught in her throat and her hand stays still in Elsa's own, and she hates herself for it.

—

Meek the Geek bites off a rat's head in front of them the next morning. Naturally, they take a place far away from everyone else, even Jimmy Darling who Bette, her disgusting and carnal-habited sister, has taken a liking to. They curl up in the corner of the dinner tent with their food, and Bette takes Dot's hand, her touch warm and gentle. She plays with it, running her thumb over the back of her less content sister's hand, and this is familiar, for once. This is something that Dot is willing to deal with, for once. In the middle of the fighting and the yelling and Bette's _annoying_ cheerfulness, there is this, this brief calmness that manages to relax even Dot, who has never been without her quick, hot temper close at hand.

"I love you, Dot," says Bette, soft and quick like someone will overhear even though no one is really paying them attention at this moment, even though they are far away from everyone else, even though their heads are bowed close to one another, staring at their lap, so that no one will read their lips and the hideously sappy things that pour forth from Bette's mouth.

Dot looks up, towards someone else, _anyone_ else, just so that she can prolong this conversation. Displays of affection have never been her strong suit. She fixates her gaze on a girl whose name she's already forgotten who, while young, can bend herself into hideous displays, like she has no bones in her body whatsoever. She is currently doing long somersaults across the tent with an ease that would make anyone envious.

She finds herself unable to watch when the girl stills and begins to bend her long legs around her head, so she looks back down at their lap again, hand twitching in Bette's own. "I know," she says, and Bette doesn't even look sad at the refusal to repeat the words back to her, because she is so used to it, so used to this back-and-forth. Bette will say the three words, and Dot will hastily look for a change of topic. In fact, Bette is smiling, not as brightly as she usually does, but it's in no way sad.

The thing is this: Dot knows that Bette knows that Dot will never say those same words back to her, and Dot knows that it no longer bothers Bette, because it has become a routine. Bette _expects_ her to say nothing, _doesn't_ expect her to return the affection.

Dot bites the inside of her cheek for a moment, and then adds, "I love you too."

Bette's face lights up like a lantern, her smile widening, her teeth gleaming behind her mouth. She is so easily pleased that it's very nearly disturbing. Dot squeezes Bette's hand in a rare moment of stability.

"Now eat," says Dot, unwounding their fingers from eachother. "It's going to get cold."

Dot pretends not to notice how Bette mouths the word _love _to herself, before she picks up the spoon and starts eating the soup. And she even pretends not to notice how Bette doesn't stop smiling the entire day.

—

This is their home now, and while it's not a very good one, it's the only one they have.


End file.
